Combat and Actions
Combat in a world filled with firearms, radscorpions, and hostile plants can be a tricky thing. Simple tries to break the process down into easily digestible chunks for your gaming pleasure. Simple combat is sequentially turn-based, with characters performing independent actions in order of combat sequence. Combat begins when characters take agressive action against one another or when the Overseer believes it is imminent. Combat ends when hostilities have ended for a reasonable period of time, determined by the Overseer. Combat Procedure The Three Phases of Combat Combat in Fallout is divided into three distinct phases: move, charge, and action. All characters involved in a battle will resolve their movement before any are allowed to charge (if able) and all characters will resolve their charge before they are allowed to take their action. This style of combat may seem strange, but it provides the capability for interesting tactical choices and events. Determining and Following Sequences At the beginning of every combat, all characters must determine their combat sequence, which is followed for the entirety of combat. Roll a single d10 and to it, add your combat sequence. If two or more characters are tied, have them each roll a d10 to determine order, with the highest always winning out. Once the order is established, the number itself isn't important. Characters will always act in order of sequence in each phase. Newcomers to battles are always added on to the end. If multiple newcomers join in the same round, they fight for pecking rights at the end by rolling for sequence as though they started a new battle. Move Phase During the move phase, characters can perform one (1) of the following actions: *Move *Sneak, Swim or Climb at half speed *Get up from a prone stance *Sprint at tripple speed (cannot perform in the charge or action phase) *Put away or take out one small item. (Such as unloading or readying a grenade) *Drop current weapon to the ground and ready another *Evade, adding +5 AC for the Turn, but losing your Charge and Action Phase At any time during this pahse a character can drop an object as a free action. N.B.: Characters in heavy armor (Power Armor, Tesla Armor, etc.) cannot Run move. Characters with a heavy weapon (Rocket Launcher, 7.62mm Machinegun, Sledgehammer, etc.) in hands cannot participate in the action phase if they perform anything but free actions in the movement phase. Charge Phase Any action taken on the charge phase uses up the player's action phase *If you moved towards a foe in the movement phase, Charge in a streight line at the foe (limited by your speed) for an imediate Melee attack. This uses up your action phase. *Push a foe back one square. They must be within 1 sq and you must pass an opposed ST checks (1d10+ST) Action Phase During the action phase, characters can perform one (1) of the following actions: *Move *Use a skill (includes making attacks). *Use an item (includes loading). *Prepare Attack. You can declare a narrow field of view prepared for attack and wait till an opponent enters it. The moment they enter that zone you imediately perform the attack. This sacrafices your next Move and Charge Phase. Ending a Round and Beginning the Next Round The round ends when everyone involved in combat capable of taking actions has done so, and all combat sequences are accounted for and re-sorted. The next round starts with the lowest sequence character acting first in the movement phase, then going through the queue. In the charge and action phases, the highest sequence character acts first. Unconscious characters are skipped. Actions in Combat When a character's combat sequence comes up, it is likely that the player will want them to do something. The following mechanics cover those actions. Calculating to Hit To hit an opponent, a target must use an attack and specify a target for the attack. The chance for the attacker to hit the target is determined using the normal skills check vs their AC. The "other modifiers" to hit typically include Range, Visibility, Proxcimity and Cover Range Penalty This is determined by the attack's range and the distance the target is from the subject. Range penalties only apply to thrown and fired attacks (e.g.: a grenade, a gun, etc.). The attack mode's range is the range at which the weapon suffers no penalties to hit. This is called Point Blank. Depending on the style of the weapon, cumulative penatlies will apply for every hex beyond the Point blank range of an attack. *Launched or Hand Thrown Weapon: -1 Penalty for each aditional hex beyond Point Blank *Pistol Grip Weapon: -1 penalty for every 2 hexes beyond Point Blank *Rifle Grip or Shoulder Mounted Weapon (Non-Launching): -1 Penalty for every 3 hexes beyond Point Blank *Scoped Pistol Grip Weapon: -1 penalty for every 4 hexes beyond Point Blank *Scoped Rifle Grip/ Shoulder Mounted Weapon: -1 for every 5 hexes beyond Point Blank Close Combat All projectile attacks have an optimal range to hit. Above stated are the penalties for a gun firing outside of its range, but should any gun fire closer then point blank range then it is considered Close Combat and suffers a -4 Penalty to hit. Scoped Weapons Scoped weapons fire considerably easier at longer ranges then Iron Sighted weapons. However, they tend to be tricky to use in close combat. a target's Colose Combat range is doubled when ever a scope is applied to a weapon, and suffes a -8 penalty to hit instead of a -5 Size, Cover and Range Penalties The above penalties for range assume that the creature is human sized (large). A small target, like a dwarf or small radscorpion, is effectively twice as far away for purposes of determining range penalties. Tiny targets, like scurry bots, are effectively three times as far away. Minute targets, like mice, are effectively four times as far away. Large targets, like huge radscorpions and security robots, are effectively half as far away. If a creature can change stance, it can effectively make its size smaller for purposes of range penalties. Size *Large, -3 AC: a supermutant or radscorpion *Full: A human *Small, +3 AC: a dog or molerat, a human torso or leg *Tiny, +6 AC: a cat, a bloat fly or rad roach, a human arm *Minute +9 AC: a soccerball, a tincan or cigirate, a human Head. Visibility Penalty Targets inflict penalties to hit on the attacker depending on how difficult it is for the attacker to see the target. *Clearly Visible: No Penalty *Partially Obscured: 3 Penalty (dim lighting, light smoke) *Heavily Obscured: 6 Penalty (dark lighting, heavy smoke) *Completely Obscured: 15 Penalty (can be detected by hearing only) Proximity Penalty Proximity penalties are applied to attack modes from specific types of weapons when an enemy is standing within one hex of them and is not stunned. Pistols and similar one-handed range devices get a -3 penalty, and two-handed weapons recieve a -6 penalty. Cover A great way to avoid being hit by ranged attacks in combat is to take cover. There are three types of cover: Full cover, Partial cover and Slit Cover. *Full cover is considered being compleatly obstructed from assalents by an object that can can take fire without breaking. In this form of cover your foes might keep shooting at you, but cannot hit you, but the catch 22 is that you cannot attack them (unless using a lobbed attack). *Partial cover is anything that hides at least half your body and can withstand the incoming fire (a car door, a concrete street divider, a wall corner) Attacking back from behind partial cover, your AC is considered +3. *Slit Cover is firing from a very narrow hole such as a tank slit, a small window or between boards on a building. This offers a +6 AC bonus. Using Two Weapons Typically only used in situations of desperation or extreme advantage, characters can use a weapon in each hand simultaneously (or perform other actions simultaneously). The player chooses to perform two actions simultaneously. The actions must be logically possible one-handed. A character could not, for instance, fire one gun with their right hand and reload another gun with their left hand. Both actions can be performed, but both actions suffer a -8 penalty to any related skill rolls on top of all other penalties. Causing Damage Wow, you hit the target! Now it's time to calculate damage. All weapons or ammunition types have damage values associated with them. Roll the damage value for each target. Subtract the target's appropriate Damage Threshold (DT) for that damage type to arrive at final damage. Remember: DTs are applied on a per-hit basis. If a target is hit with six bullets, his or her DT is subtracted from each of the damage rolls. Critical Hits Every time an attack successfully hits, there is a chance that it can become a critical hit. A critical hit is an attack that has landed in a particularly vulnerable spot on the opponent’s body and done more severe damage, typically twice as much. To determine a player’s chance of getting a critical hit roll 1d100 and see if it falls within the Crit-range. To determine the Crit range, subtract you LUCK statistic from 95. (A Luck statistic of less then 0 will not adversly affect critical hits, instead it will affect critical fails) should your d100 land at or above that amount, then a critical hit is delt to the foe. Critical Damage is determined by the weapon, ammo, and perks. The Damage is modified by the weapons Crit Damage Example: Ted of the wilds has 3 Luck, and a 9mm Pistol *95 - 3 Luck = 92 *Ted rolls 97 *97>92, Its a Crit! *Ted's 9mm (1d6+2 Damage) Pistol's crit damage is x2 *(1d6+2) x2 = 2d6+4 *Ted's Critical hit does 2d6+4 Damage It should be noted that multiple crit damage multipliers are addative, not multiplicative. The better criticals perk with a .22 pistol equates to x4 Crit damage, not x6. Critical Failure Just as there is a chance to get a critical scucess in an attack, there is also a chance to criticaly fail. Should you roll a 10 or less on a crit chance, you will still deal damage to your foe as per a sucessful attack, but your weapon will jam and become damaged. (With Melee fails, your weapon wont jam, but both the weapon AND YOU take 1 damage for fouling up) When a gun is jammed, it takes an unload action to clear the chamber or clean a contact before being usable again. A LUCK statistic of less then 0 will increase the critical fail chance by a one for one factor Disarm A disarm is essentially an unarmed attack and can occur during either the charge or action phases. Disarming a small item requires only one open hand. Disarming a large item requires two. To disarm, the attacker must make a Melee skill check against a Very Easy difficulty + the target's Melee skill total. If successful, the item is in the hand(s) of the attacker. Called Shots Called shots are an important part of Fallout combat. They allow characters to inflict devastating status penalties on characters that would otherwise not be possible. A talented combatant can break limbs, cause internal bleeding, and even blind opponents. Called shots exist independently of the critical hit system, though a character with enough talent can stack the effects of a critical hit and called shot if his or her margin of success is high enough. The difficulty of a called shot is directly proportional to the size of the body part being targeted. All body types in Fallout have body part sizes based on the size of individual limbs. To hit the target, penalties are applied as though the target is actually the size of the limb at range. Though there is no sequence penalty for taking a called shot, a failed roll is assumed to miss entirely. *Human Torso or Leg: Small (x2 Range Modifier, -3 to hit) *Human Arm or Head: Tiny (x3 Range Modifier, -6 to hit) *Human Eyes or Groin: Minute (x4 Range Modifier, -9 to hit) If an attack hits, damage is rolled against that body part. The attack is considered a Cripple if it does more than then 20% of the target's total hit points in damage. Cripple Effects *Cripple Leg, -3 (Small Target) **One Leg: Movement rates are halved (rounded down). **Two Legs: Can only move 1 sq during the action phase *Cripple Torso, -3 (Small Target) **Character takes 1d4 damage per round from bleeding if they participate in the charge or action phase (Walking or waiting do not count) *Cripple Arm, -6 (Tiny Target) **All actions performed with that arm are at -6. *Cripple Head, -9 (Minute Target Target) **Concussion, -2 PE, IN, CH. Vision damaged. All targets are lightly obscured. (-3 penalty). *Cripple Groin, -9 (Minute Target) **Character has a 25% chance of failing every action they take due to pain. If a creature has more than two eyes/legs, the penalties for a single cripple apply until all eyes/legs are Crippled Removing a Crippled status To remove a Crippled status, the character will have to have it fixed through the use of Medic or Mechanics (if the character is living or robot, respectively). Death and Fatigue When a character hits zero hit points, the character falls uncontious, every round there after, the player "Bleeds Out" at a rate of 1 HP a round. should they loose 10 + END more HP, then they will die. To stop a bleed out another player may administer a average Medic check or use a quick healing device (such as stimpacks or healing powder) to staunch the bleeding. Should a player's HP once again rise above 0, then they regain conciousness and may act freely. Along with hitpoints, characters also ocassionaly take fatigue damage. When this happens, the character's fatigue, which starts at zero, goes up. Every round, on the character's turn, his or her fatigue goes down by 1. If a character's fatigue is equal to or higher than his or her current hit points, the character is winded and suffers a -4 penalty to all skill checks. Once the character's fatigue falls below their current hit points, the character is no longer winded. If a character's fatigue ever passes their maximum hit points, the character passes out and falls to the ground. Once the character's fatigue falls below their maximum hit points, they regain consciousness. Fatuige can be gained in a number of ways, most often by attackes being soaked by damage threshold or by taking non-lethal damage. Category:Simple system